The Italian wire rod market has remained strong in the past week. Local producers are now offering drawing quality wire rod (SAE1006) at €480-490/mt delivered in northern Italy, against the €480/mt level recorded early last week. Prices are supported by decent demand and most of all by a lack of supply, as local producers are fully booked. Meanwhile, import activities have remained subdued, according to sources. However, in the European Union, 43 percent of the quota for Turkish wire rod – a quota which amounts to 79,478 mt for the October-December quarter - has been used up and is expected to be exhausted in the short term. According to the latest data published by Federacciai, in the first seven months of this year Italy imported 124,000 mt of wire rod from non-EU countries, i.e., 17.3 percent less than in the same period of 2019. In the same period, about 17,000 mt came from Turkey, according to data issued by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK).